To many of us, the Chinese zodiac is something familiar from menus at Asian restaurants where we seek to learn if we’re a Snake, a Horse or a Pig by looking up the year of our birth. And early in the year, when little else is going on, we perk up to realize the Chinese New Year is about to happen again. This is the Year of the Snake, and a few months from now, in late January, it will become the Year of the Horse.
Those of us who are ambitious might head to the Asian Market in Cleveland’s AsiaTown to pick up ingredients for a party.
Instead, while the weather’s still nice, head toward University Circle and take in the exhibit “Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The 12 creatures are huge — probably larger-than-life-size — but who really knows in the case of the dragon. They’re supposedly based on a 12-month lunar cycle, used to track the seasons for planting and harvesting in an agrarian society. Legends connect the zodiac and the characteristics attributed to its various animals with Buddha, while others say the system greatly predates Buddha and is rooted instead with ancient nomadic tribes who developed a calendar based on animals they hunted.
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who can be controversial in his own country, framed his sculptures around those looted in the mid-1800s by Europeans during the Second Opium Wars. The originals had surrounded a fountain clock in gardens of one of the emperor’s summer palaces. Invading French and British officers took some of the heads for their own countries and the plundering became a symbol of China’s “national humiliation” by the west.
Seven of the 12 plundered heads have resurfaced, but instead of replicating them, Ai Weiwei used their likenesses as his inspiration. The others are his imaginative renderings.
The museum’s curator of Chinese art, Anita Chung, said this exhibit and others by Ai Weiwei deal with complex issues of real or fake, the value, and how value relates to current political and social misunderstandings.
The giant heads, she said, stand above human height to gain the best view of human absurdity and how things can be blown out of proportion.
“Ai Weiwei who was born in 1957, provides a witty play of creative tensions between past and present, between the original and the imitation,” she said.
Ironically, the original zodiac heads were not created by a Chinese artist but by the famous Jesuit missionary artist Giuseppe Castiglione and constructed by Michel Benoit, a Jesuit scientist. It was a time in China, just before our Civil War, when European creations were especially valued.
Ai Weiwei has said that he hopes the work provides comic relief from the historical reality of loss and provokes critical thinking about the absurdities related to the zodiac heads.
“Maybe after I deal with this through making this artwork, people will re-examine the whole issue,” the artist said in an interview for the museum’s magazine. “It does bring significance to these old objects. But just as decorative objects, the original heads stayed quiet for many years. They’re like a toilet seat, or anything else.”
The animal heads are dramatically displayed along a wall of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original 1916 building, in the soaring atrium just beyond the entrance.
Consider, as you view them, that these iconic figures live on forever as universal law to the Chinese. Then realize that what changes is the way people invest meaning in these animals, depending on the time, place and context.

About the author
I am a horse, and the Chinese zodiac says I possess energy, intelligence and strength. Horses communicate well and like crowds but prefer to stay in quiet places. They are easily heartbroken and not good money managers. They tend to become scattered when faced with multitasking. A horse is impatient, trustworthy and a follower of rules.
Next year, 2014, will be the Year of the Horse. It begins Jan. 31 and ends Feb. 18, 2015.
— Janet Podolak

About the Author

Janet's a features veteran, covering food, travel, religion & health and knows the area, people & events. Her travels include Myanmar, Greenland & Europe. Her expertise lies in scuba, cooking & wines. Reach the author at JPodolak@News-Herald.com
or follow Janet on Twitter: @JPodolakatwork.